We need to meet more often

An Instagram manager in Russia told TJournal how and for whom regular Instagram photo meetings are held

On October 6, the Instagram photo service turned four years old. On the eve of this date, the tenth anniversary Worldwide InstaMeet took place.

In honor of both dates, TJournal talked about the relatively new, but already very popular phenomenon of Instagram with Olesya Shayakhmetova, Instagram community manager in Russia.

Olesya Shayakhmetova

How did Instagrams appear and who organizes them?

Instagrams are becoming more and more popular every year. It's a phenomenon where members of the Instagram community can meet offline to find cool content and inspiration for their accounts.

The Instagramming movement began in 2011 when several Instagrammers knocked on Instagram's San Francisco headquarters and asked founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger to take a photo with them. Since then, more than a thousand Instagrams have taken place all over the world.

It is very important to note that as Instagram employees we only support and help the community organize meetings, but we never organize Instagrams ourselves.

#wwim10 participants in Copenhagen

How do they take place and how are participants coordinated beyond Instagram?

Groups can organize spontaneously, it could be a few friends who just got together to take photos, or it could be more than 600 people meeting at the stadium. Large groups of people love to come up with common hashtags and will definitely take a group photo.

#Wonderlandmeet in Moscow as part of #wwim10

#wwim10_tokyo in Tokyo, Japan

Instagrammers also love adventure and unique places where they can take unique photos. For example, this photo was taken on the coast near Oban, Scotland.

There is such a format as a photowalk - you just get together and go from one point to another (for example, this year a group of Moscow Instagrammers gathered #UMBmeet and walked through places that are associated with the personality of the writer Mikhail Bulgakov), and along the way you come up with various scripts for your photographs - and sometimes this is a specific place where everyone meets and practically does not go beyond the perimeter.

Sometimes meetings last an entire weekend, and sometimes photographers only gather for a few hours to capture sunset or sunrise.

Announcement of a photo walk in New Orleans

#UMBMeet

Instagrammers love to share tips, recommend different apps and filters, and are happy to help each other take interesting photos. Our blog has tips and some inspiration for those who want to organize their own Instagram.

How does Instagram support Instagram culture and why is it important for the service? What is the company doing in general as part of its work on the community?

We make sure to contact the Instagram organizers and help them with advice, ideas and experience from previous meetings. For example, we also send all organizers the Instameet Kit - this is a special set of accessories and attributes that allow Instagrammers to make meetings more creative and productive.

After each Instagram, if it results in a sufficient amount of interesting content, we make sure to make selections of the best photos that appear both on the international blog in English and on @instagramrussia . For organizers and participants, this is something that will remind them of well-run meetings, and for others it will be useful information on how to organize an Instagram meeting.

Another important factor that enhances the Instagram phenomenon is its global scope. Despite the fact that Instagram can take place anywhere and at any time, several times a year we invite the community all over the world to gather at the same time. This event is now called Worldwide Instameet. This is a manifesto of the creativity and massiveness of the Instagram community around the world.

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TJournal has collected ten more successful, in the opinion of the editors, photographs published in different countries of the world as part of the 10th Worldwide InstaMeet and tagged #WWIM10.

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